No Vacancies in the Fridge
by Day of Diana
Summary: Jane reluctantly accepts Gamzee as her guide. He only wants to help her, right? Well, whether his intentions are pure or not, she has no other choices. Their first mission: find Jane's father. After that... let's see where this partnership takes them. Gamzee/Jane. All other pairings are only in the prologue.


Eventually, she found Gamzee again. Or maybe it was the other way around.

:o) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ (o:

Dirk had dropped the little blue-eyed detective off in her world after he, Roxy, and Jane had collected Jake. The poor, pistol-toting adventurer had furiously wiped his mouth and had dry heaved over the side of the flying skateboard the whole way back to LOCAH. Jake had been thoroughly disgusted by the revolting lip contact he and Dirk's dead head had had to partake in to bring the puppeteer back to life. Dirk had seemed similarly put off by the utterly vile resurrection kiss, but had been too focused on the task of taking Jane safely back to her planet to go through all the motions of revulsion as Jake had been. Jane had noticed, however, that every few minutes the orange-eyed boy had rubbed at his mouth and had spat a ball of saliva off of the side of the board.

As soon as the four alphas had entered the medium and had landed on Jane's world, Dirk had wasted no time in gathering them all around in a strategic circle. The white-haired boy had then proceeded to tell them that he had very important business to attend to and that he had to take Roxy and Jake to their respective worlds so that they could go on their own quests. Dirk had further explained that once all of their character arcs had been completed, they were to meet up again in the future with some trolls, a cherub, and their children so that they could help the beta session finally win Sburb once and for all.

"I'll coordinate all that, though. You don't have anything to worry about. You don't even have to go through the seven gates to defeat your denizen, because there's really no point to it," Dirk had said, grasping Jane's hand and helping her step off the hovering board, "Just be careful, and don't do anything stupid while you look for your father. I'll come back for you, and we'll go see our children together."

"Okay," she had replied, squeezing his hand once, hard, before she had let go. "Do you think we'll be able to beat this game?"

Dirk had reached up to her face to brush a curl of hair behind her ear. "I know we can."

And as he had retracted his hand, his fingers, whether accidentally or not, had skimmed her cheek. Instinctively, she had leaned into his touch. His hand hadn't lingered, but she thought she had heard him sigh softly as he had brought his arm fully back to his side.

Jake and Roxy had watched their exchange, but hadn't said anything about it.

The pink-eyed girl had been next to say her goodbyes. "I dunno if I'll see you for a while, Janey, but promise me you'll solve the motherfuckin' shit outta all your puzzles. It's what LOCAH's greatest gumshoe should do."

Jane had managed to contain her giggles. Roxy had still been a bit hung over; she had been holding onto Dirk's middle for support, and had been leaning so far over the board that it was bobbing a little. Jane had seen down her purple pajama top.

"I wish you the best of luck with your riddles too, dear. Hoo hoo," Jane had said.

Roxy had beamed and had straightened up, then had released Dirk and had knelt down on the levitating craft. She had beckoned Jane to come closer, even though the black-haired girl was pretty close to the board already.

"C'mere, Janey-Craney. I wanna give ya somethin' ta remember me by, in case it really _is_ a long time before we see each other again."

Jane had chuckled nervously. She had hoped that Roxy hadn't been suggesting what she had thought the white-haired girl had been suggesting. She had taken a step nearer anyway, so as not to be rude. This was probably the last time she was going to see all of her friends for a long while, she had thought, so she might as well humor them. In her periphery, she had noticed Jake looking determinedly in her direction. She had also noticed that the cinephile had hooked the back of his collar with two of his fingers and had begun to tug on it in slight, twitchy movements, which she had thought kind of odd. Dirk, meanwhile, had been waiting idly at the head of the board, gazing off into the distance. He had seemed to be observing some of the more brightly colored hot air balloons.

Jane's head was now very near and roughly at the same level as the purple-clothed girl's was. "Ah, yes? What is it you want to-?"

Roxy's hands had shot forward, temporarily unbalancing the board and almost tipping the whole thing over. She had taken Jane's startled face in her palms, had turned it sharply to the left, and had planted a slightly wet kiss on her cheek. She had then pulled her arms back, had almost fallen off the board, had wobbled, and had stood up. Roxy next had wrapped her upper limbs around Dirk's stomach yet again to stabilize the trio upon the floating piece of plastic. This had all occurred in less than five seconds.

Jane had not quite been dumbstruck, as she had had an inkling from Roxy's rather suggestive words what the girl had been going to do, but she had still been a bit amazed by her friend's actions. They hadn't even met in real life before half an hour ago and they were already getting quite intimate! Well, the pink-eyed girl hadn't taken it _too_ far, but still.

"Oh, um... thank you," Jane had said, then had found her internal dialogue asking herself why she had sounded more flustered than she had thought she was.

Roxy had laughed and had turned away, pressing her torso against Dirk's back. The white-haired boy had rolled his shoulders, seemingly attempting to hint to Roxy that he didn't want her to be leaning on him, but the hung over girl had ignored him. Jane had identified a bit of embarrassed coloring on the girl's ears.

"You're welcome," Roxy had said without turning around to face Jane.

All of a sudden, everything had become really awkward.

After a few tense moments wherein Jake had repeatedly jerked on his collar and had fanned himself, Roxy had lifted herself off of Dirk, and had then spoken again.

"I'm really sorry about before. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't."

Jane had creased her brows. "What're you talking about, Ro-Lal?"

Dirk had made as if to speak, but Roxy had thumped him on the back, so he had remained standing silently. Jane had glanced at Jake, but he had looked as perplexed as she had felt. However, maybe the reason he had seemed so confused had been because his glasses had fogged up for some odd reason.

"What-" she had begun again, but Roxy had suddenly swiveled to her. The blue-eyed girl had been surprised to find two tracts of tears running down her friend's pretty face. Her eyes had seemed a bit redder too, and snot had been beginning to collect at the bottoms of her nostrils.

"I couldn't k-kiss you back to life, okay?" Roxy had brought up one of her sleeved arms to wipe at her face. "I was tryin' to imagine that you were- well, that doesn't matter, because I couldn't do it in the end, anyway! Dirk had to. He saved you n' I couldn't. It's not that I didn't try my motherfuckin' damnedest, because I really did... but that's not really an excuse, is it? If Dirk hadn't been there, who _knows_ what coulda happened to you?"

More tears had started streaming down Roxy's face. Her eyes had become redder, and soon she had yanked her collar up to blow her nose on it. Jake had recovered from his bizarre bout of short-lived fever, or whatever had come over him, and had placed a sympathetic arm around Roxy's waist to steady and comfort her. Dirk had turned to face Roxy and also offer a secure embrace. Jane had only stared. Then, at some point, she had found her voice again.

"W-well, Ro-Lal, th-that's all right, I'm fine and dandy now," Jane had said. She had been aware that she had been close to crying herself, right then. "I'm fit as a fiddle, you don't have to be worrying anymore-"

"B-but I woulda never forgiven m-myself if you-" Roxy had started, hiccupping and gratefully accepting Jake's handkerchief, "You c-coulda been g-gone f-forever..."

Jane had blocked the images of that particular event from her mind even as they had begun to pop into her brain. "But I'm just right as rain over here, dear! I'm perfect as peaches! Dandy as candy!"

"Oh, s-stop it with all of y-your c-cute little metaphors, Janey." Roxy had sniffed, smiling. "Or I'm g-gonna hafta kiss you again." Jake had gasped at this (Jane hadn't really known why), and had started to fan himself again. Dirk had reached around Roxy and had slapped at one of the adventurer's wrists, but alas it had been to no avail.

"Please, there's no need for that," Jane had said, holding up her palms in a supplicating gesture. "It's okay. I'm still here, aren't I?"

Roxy had then wadded up Jake's dripping hanky and had stuffed it in her pocket. Jane had happened to glance at just the right moment to the green-eyed boy to have seen Jake make a face, and he had stopped fanning himself. The black-haired boy also had uncurled his arm from around his friend's waist. Dirk had still kept a supportive hold on Roxy, though.

"Can you forgive me, Janey?" the pink-eyed girl had asked, and she had bent to Jane's level again. Dirk had followed her down, hands moving to her shoulders to continue to make sure she didn't rock the board too violently.

Jane hadn't thought twice before she had answered, "Yes, of course. I know it must've been a really tough thing to do. I mean, I know we're friends and all, but I would have to play chicken with my psyche too before I ever kissed you, even if it would've revived you."

Had Jane seen a small flash of hurt cross Roxy's face? Nah, that must've been her imagination.

"Yeah, right." Roxy had snuffled, still clearing out her runny nose. Her eyes had still been puffed up, even though she had stopped crying. She had then stood up again, smiling as she did so. Dirk came up with her and apparently had decided that she could stand without help, because he had freed her shoulders.

Once they had both stood upright fully, Roxy had grinned and added, "All right kiddo, have fun. Oh, and the most important thing to remember is to try not being a tight-ass."

Jane had forced a few chuckles at Roxy's advice. She had never believed that she had a stick up her butt, and frankly, whenever Roxy said she did it annoyed her.

"Will do, hoo hoo hoo."

The white-haired boy had then faced forward again and had placed one of his feet in front of the other, pressing his right foot on the high point of the front of the skateboard. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Wait a minute, my good fellow! I haven't said my farewell to Jane!" Jake had exclaimed.

Dirk hadn't turned to his friend as he had said, "Make it quick. Time is against us."

"Righto." Jake had crouched on the board. "Well, I guess this is so long for now, my girl." He had extended a hand. "I hope you don't mind me not addressing your cheek as Roxy did. It doesn't seem proper, since I'd be stealing her idea. Can't have that, now can I?"

Jane had grinned and had giggled. "Nope, not at all. You're a true original, Jake."

She had taken his hand, had thought that he had meant for a simple handshake between them, and then her friends would be off on their own adventures for a while. She had known she hadn't wanted to confess her romantic inclinations to him then. Besides already having completely botched it once, she hadn't wanted to distract him from whatever his destiny quest might be. Similarly, on her own end, she hadn't wanted to have him on her mind either. She had known she had to be totally in the zone while going through the game, and she didn't want to mess anything up.

Perhaps, she had thought, when they met their children she could drop a few hints. And after the game, whether they won or lost, she would hopefully have enough balls by then to tell him that she liked him as more than a friend. Maybe he would still hold feelings for her as well and would, by that time, have fully reconsidered his "attraction" to Dirk. It could be that he had been having second thoughts already. It had certainly seemed as though he had not at all, not in the least, tiniest possible iota, enjoyed the kiss between himself and Dirk's severed head. Who would have, anyway? Yuck. And it looked like even _Dirk _hadn't been pleased with the kiss, despite having been _dead_ and thus hadn't felt a thing at the time he had received it. Well, thinking about it, maybe when the white-haired boy had watched his friend kissing him he had been thoroughly sickened by the sight? But Jane didn't really want to know, and she hadn't been about to ask.

Jake had enveloped his warm hand in hers, then had gently tugged her closer to the board.

'Ah,' Jane had thought. 'Yet again?'

It had turned out that Jake _had_ wanted to kiss her, but not on her cheek.

He had held the back of her hand up to his lips and had laid a sweet, chaste print upon it. The next thing she knew, he had let go. Her arm had slowly dropped back to her side. Then, with a wondrous, freeing sensation, she had been overwhelmed with a torrent of emotion. Jane had felt so much love for him that she had almost crossed those few inches between them and kissed him directly.

She almost had. She could have, and she and he would have been that much happier for it. But she hadn't.

After the gentlemanly kiss, Jake had said, "Well, you take care now, Jane. I'll see you again when we're ready to face Bec Noir. Until then, have lots of jolly good adventure time!"

"I will," she had replied, smiling slightly. "You have a right merry time too, all of you. Good luck with all of your journeys. Toodle-oo, everyone."

And, with final well wishes and goodbyes from her friends, Dirk had revved up the board. It had growled until it had stored up enough acceleration to jump them far off into the distance. Jane had planned to wave heartily to them till they were no more than a speck in the gloomy sky, but she supposed it was just as well. It was high time for her to continue her odyssey.

:o) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ (o:

LOCAH, she quickly confirmed, was a wasteland all around. Although it had very brightly colored hot air balloons floating all around, and a plentiful water supply, it was a pretty bleak and hardly habitable place. It was relatively small as far as planets went, and it was completely barren. Everywhere she looked the earth was always a dark, cracked grey, and it just went on for miles and miles in every direction. Undersized mountains broke up the landscape a bit, but they were formed out of the same colorless clay as the ground and barely added anything to the scenery. Jane had hoped to find at least some edible plants or fertile farmland, but all the flora that existed were mass amounts of dry, twisted, dead weeds that were spread all over. The little detective had also expected that some form of animal life was still around, but after she had searched half of the planet she began to doubt her theory.

The only foods in her sylladex were various pastries. She kept a healthy supply of rations by duplicating them and separating out the ingredients so that she could gain all of the forms of nutrients she needed. She sometimes went days without eating because she was so intent upon searching for her father. There were no little anthropomorphized salamanders living here anymore, so she couldn't ask them for help, which she thought hindered her manhunt greatly. And one day when Jane found and crept into her denizen Hemera's palace on a hunch, she was both saddened and freaked out when she found an absolutely gigantic skeleton of what had been a humanoid creature. Although the salamanders had predicted that Hemera would still be alive when the four alphas arrived in the medium, that proved to not be the case. In fact, the case had pretty much imploded on itself, and Jane was left to scrape up its charred, crumbly remains, which did not sit well with her. But she was a trooper, so she carried on.

A few days after she and her friends had split up, Roxy contacted her. The white-haired girl said that her planet was also quite dead, but that the puzzles were still intact and the loot was still collectable. Jane had been so busy exploring her world that she hadn't given any thought to the various cryptic games or treasures. She wanted to find her father first, and told Roxy so. After a few more hours of conversation, they wished each other luck and promised that they would talk again in a week.

Some days after that, Jake messaged Jane and they spoke about their respective planets. Jake was having the time of his life, and although he was forlorn and frustrated that his world was desolate, he was sort of glad that he didn't have to kill anything to get through the riddles and gather all the riches. Jane sympathetically agreed with him on that. She then politely turned the chat log around to her own troubles.

By this point, Jane had calculated that she had been on LOCAH for about two weeks, and she had still not seen neither hide nor hair of her dad. She was getting rather worried. Furthermore, she had sent Lil' Seb off ahead of her a couple days prior to expedite the search, and he had not returned yet, which was also disquieting. Jake managed to reassure her that she would come upon her robotic rabbit and her father in due time, and that maybe she should try to play some of the games. He suggested that the puzzles might lead her right to her missing family members, and she perked up at that idea. She thanked him for his theory and for injecting new life into her, as she had been feeling rather dejected and frazzled as of late. After they had chatted some more, she went off to try her hand at the planet's mysterious riddles.

It took a long time for her to solve the second one, and an even larger amount of time passed before she completed the third. She was beginning to think that she wasn't the greatest detective after all. Either that, or the games were ridiculously difficult, beyond even her own talents. She talked to Roxy once a week, and Jake sent her messages every few days or so. She didn't hear from Dirk until she had spent nearly a month on her world.

At that point she was still playing the games, and none of them had led her to her faithful sidekick or her beloved parent. None of them had even given her any clues as to where they were either, and only rewarded her with more money. Jane was climbing her echeladder pretty quickly, but she didn't care for the new ranks she achieved. She was sometimes so distressed she couldn't rest or eat. Jane was ready to give up the riddles and just comb every inch of LOCAH all over again, but Dirk advised her to continue solving the puzzles, as he truly trusted that they would eventually bring her to her father and Lil' Seb. He said that when Jake had told AR that Lil' Seb had apparently gone missing, the glasses had tried to contact the bunny... but had only received static in response. Wherever the robot was now, it was most likely very deep underground, and would only be freed when Jane completed her puzzles. She was troubled at this bit of information and wondered aloud why Sburb would take away one of her only useful tools, but acknowledged that it was a possibility. Dirk only spoke with her for a couple more minutes, but he assured her that he was doing well and that he was going to come for her any day now.

Jane believed him and he signed off.

Little did she know that that would be the _last_ chat log Dirk Strider would ever partake in with her.

:o) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ (o:

Jane had just completed the ninth or tenth puzzle and was taking a snack break when something dawned on her.

Even if she constantly carried around a time-keeping device, it was very easy for her to lose track of what day or week it was. Indeed, she had become so absorbed in her various puzzles that it hadn't occurred to her for some time that she hadn't been checking in with Roxy every week, nor Jake every few days. In fact, in the two entire months that had passed since she had talked to Dirk, neither Roxy nor Jake had contacted her. It was very, _very _strange, Jane thought. Strange and unsettling.

So, upon realizing this, she immediately brought out her laptop, a model that Dirk had given her after she'd learned the truth about her great great grandmother and the history of the Crocker Corporation. It was now the only computer she had, although Jake had urged her to carry at least five computers at once, which she dismissed as being absolutely too silly. Besides, lugging five computers around would only slow her down, as their combined weight would surely be too heavy for her to walk around with.

Jane made it a policy to only open the laptop when someone else pestered her first. She had never once used it for any other purpose than to chat on Pesterchum, even to access the internet or look for cheat codes for Sburb. She felt that even though the game had taken away every other practical gadget she had, it still wouldn't be fair for her to pull a fast one on it. She wanted to solve the puzzles by her own merit, and she was beginning to see that Sburb was trying to get her to rely on her own intellect and strength instead of using all of the fancy technology that she had been hooked on all her life. Jane thought that maybe relinquishing her dependency on machine intelligence was part of her myth arc, so she didn't use the laptop unless one of her friends messaged her.

The little detective unlocked the computer and waited for the password box to pop up. The screen remained black. Jane waited a little bit longer. Still the screen stood black.

She tried pushing the on/off switch, but nothing happened. So she pressed a bunch of keys. That did absolutely nothing. She banged an angry fist on the keyboard. This was getting stupid.

She was beginning to feel quite frustrated when she realized something. She counted up all the clues and could have kicked herself for not discerning the real problem sooner: the laptop had no power.

This was disconcerting. Dirk had told her that the machine would not need conventional fuel, as it ran on an entirely self-sustaining energy chip that was powered by something called "The Green Sun", so she hadn't fussed at all about needing to have an electrical outlet conveniently nearby. The fact that the laptop's battery would be forever charged had been the primary reason that Jane felt comfortable searching all over her planet. Now that the laptop was dead she would have to return to her house, where she had left all of her other computers.

She thought she was about half a day's walk from her home, and she wasted no time in setting off. As she walked/jogged towards her house, her mind wandered through infinite complications that might have arisen because the laptop was dead. She didn't really think about _why_ the laptop was dead, even though Dirk would never, ever falsely advertise a feature on one of his creations.

"What if someone tried to contact me and it was an emergency and I never responded?" Jane asked aloud, kicking at clumps of weeds along her path. "What if Dirk tried to get onto my planet again but he couldn't, and then he told me to go through all the gates so he could get me but I didn't and he had to leave?"

She began to stress herself out, so she pulled some danishes out of her sylladex and ate them to try to calm herself down. She felt better after eating, and decided that she would pass the time by recalling a story as she walked along.

"Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a little girl and her bunny and her father," Jane spoke to the hills in the distance, checking her compass from time to time as she recounted her tale.

She had forgotten the ending, but she made it a happy one. After finishing the story she had only walked for an hour, so she drudged up memories of another fantasy parable to tell herself. And after that one was done, she spun another. Then another, and so on and so forth, all the way home.

It comforted her somehow, returning to these relics of her childhood, when she read half the night away instead of derping around on the tiaratop. She thought about how satisfied her little self had been once she had completed a book, had gained another increment of knowledge about how the world worked. Sherlock Holmes had been one of her favorite series to read. Maybe once she returned to the house she would look for the tome that contained almost all of the best-loved legends of the great detective.

Finally, the house was in sight. It looked just as she had left it, sitting prettily upon a very sturdy hot air balloon. Jane walked down the cobbled path to the front door and bent to get the house keys from under the mat. She didn't know why she had locked it when she had left it, since no one else could really break in and do anything to it. Oh, except Dirk, of course. But she was confident that her server player hadn't done and wouldn't do anything untoward inside it.

She inserted the correct key into the tumblers, but found that the front door was already unlocked. This surprised her.

"I'm sure that I secured you," Jane said to the door. "At least, I'm pretty certain..."

Unable to shake off a creeping feeling of apprehension, she stepped inside the house, leaving the door open behind her in case she had to bolt.

Jane flicked on a light-switch. Luckily, the power in the house still worked because of a generator her father had installed some years before. The entryway looked undisturbed. She paused to take off her shoes in the antechamber before going into the entrance hallway, but didn't. If she needed to flee, she wanted to run with her shoes on. As she slipped around the hallway as quietly as she could, noting that everything seemed to be in its place, from the furniture neatly placed against the walls to the hanging pictures, she began to relax and her anxiety started to dissipate.

"Nothing funky going on in here, no sir." Jane clicked her tongue and scanned the hallway, moving towards the stairs as she did so. "In fact, everything looks even more orderly than when I was last here, and I haven't been here for months!"

She stilled, realizing what she had just said. She looked again at the furniture; the hanging and framed pictures, the potted plants decorating the hallway tables. Every single item she inspected seemed to be clean and in its place. She ran one finger along a table, sniffed at the plants, and examined how well the hanging pictures hung. The table had no dust on it, the plants were not at all withered, and the pictures on the walls did not hang crooked at all, despite the fact that the house did move subtly up and down now due to the balloon supporting it.

Someone else had been in the house very recently.

Or he was in the house right now. With her.

An unbidden image of that frightening troll boy she had seen when she had come back to the house after she had solved the first puzzle took form in her mind. Oh gog, NO.

Her heart jumped up into her throat, and she could hear her heartbeats as her pulse picked up speed. She wished with all her might that Lil' Seb, or, better yet, her father had come home, but she knew even as she thought it that that wouldn't be the case.

She snuck to the far wall and glued herself to it, willing her heart to stop thumping so loudly and so quickly. Hugging the wall, she crept along it until she reached the arched doorway to the living room. There was no door separating the hallway from the living room, so Jane had no cover. She would have to take a huge risk and peep around the corner, exposing herself to whoever was in there, _if_ there was anybody there.

Jane's chest felt tight and she gave up on slowing her pulse as she pressed her ear to the wall, hoping to hear first if there was someone in the room. She heard nothing. Well, there were many other rooms in the house... perhaps there wasn't anyone in the living space at this moment?

'Stop being such a 'fraidy cat and go look!' Jane shouted at herself inside her head.

She steeled her nerves and pulled her battling fork from her strife specibus. Then she took a deep breath and glanced into the living room.

It was empty. It was also just as tidy as the entrance hallway. She let out a sigh of relief, but did not put her weapon back. Jane just knew someone was here. He might not be in the living room, but he was somewhere in the house. She couldn't think that he might be out of the house, because then she would lower her guard, and he might jump on her at any second. She needed to be ready, in the mindset of a wary soldier. Gog, that sounded so weird.

Jane tiptoed into the living room and went around it once, checking for anything that had been moved or taken. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than how spotless everything was. Her father liked to keep a clean house, and Jane did her fair share of the cleaning chores, but they weren't neat _freaks_, not like this. Never had Jane seen the couch cushions look so immaculate.

Shaking her head to dispel any appreciation she had begun to feel, Jane moved towards the connected dining room. There was no door between the living and dining rooms either, just a double-archway. Though she doubted the intruder would be in the dining area, she listened for any signs of him first before peeking into the room. Just as she suspected, no one was there. Just as Jane had done with the living room, she went around the dining room once to check for any moved or missing property. And just as before, she noted that nothing had been stolen or misplaced. However, something did not fit the earlier pattern that she had observed.

The dining room was totally dirty. Dust coated every little thing, and Jane was sure there'd be all sorts of creepy crawlies moving around if any bugs or rodents existed on LOCAH. Jane made a mental note to scrub the room down later despite her dust allergies, and moved on to the kitchen.

The dining room and the kitchen were connected by another archway, but her dad had installed saloon doors to divide the space a couple years ago at her request. Whenever she walked through them she liked to pretend that she was in an old Western movie, strutting into a rough n' tumble tavern. But now they posed a bit of a problem. They always squeaked when she pushed her way through them. Jane didn't want to alert the trespasser to her presence, obviously, so she couldn't just walk right in. She could probably squeeze under them, but she didn't want to be wiggling on the ground if there was anybody in the kitchen; it would leave her wide open to an attack. And she didn't want to leap over them. She had tried that once with the help of a chair, but had gotten her skirt caught and had ended up splitting her lip on the tile floor, where she had landed headfirst. That hadn't been a fun day.

Well, she could always get into the kitchen through another- wait!

There was the unmistakable sound of soft soles padding across the floor. Jane stuck fast to the wall in order to conceal herself and better hear what was going on. Her heart, which had calmed down in the past few minutes, struck up a fast rhythm once more. She clutched her battling fork even more tightly as the footsteps drew nearer.

Now someone was opening the refrigerator. He shuffled a couple of things around, and then there was a loud clunk as he set something down on the counter.

A low, mellow, and masculine voice began to speak. No, not speak. _Sing_.

"Comic books and rubber bands, climb into the tree top. Falling down and holding hands, tricycles and red pop. Pony rides and Sunday nights, roller skates and yo-yos. Fairy tales and snowball fights, climb in through the window. Remember when you were a kid... well part of you still is! And that's why we make Faygo! Faygo remembers... Faygo..."

It was Gamzee Makara. He had a lovely singing voice.

He had also apparently been perusing her father's collection of old shows that he had taped off of the television. Jane distinctly remembered that old Faygo jingle on one of her favorite videotapes, circa 1970.

Hearing Makara sing might have made her heart melt a little bit, but he was still an unwanted houseguest and must be shown the door.

Jane screwed up her face into what she hoped was a determined look of anger, took ahold of her weapon in both hands, and entered the kitchen.

She marched in with the fork at the ready. He was there, over at the oven, pressing buttons. Hm, suspicious! Jane noted a pie tin on the counter filled to the brim with some soupy, acid-green substance. So, that must've been what he had taken out of the refrigerator before.

Gamzee seemed to be having trouble with the oven, because suddenly he smashed his fist against the control panel, denting it. Jane gasped in shock. Her jaw dropped even further when he fixed the dent by popping the panel off and sprinkling some purple, sparkly powder onto it. Then he just pushed it back into place, and it glowed for a few seconds. When the luminescence faded, it looked as good as new. That powder may have something to do with how the hallway, living room, and dining room were so clean!

Gamzee shook his head. "Motherfuckin' crock of motherfuckin' shit. At least it works now."

Jane stood stock still, staring at the back of his head. He looked even more intimidating than she had recalled: he was freakishly tall, with monstrous, twisted horns sprouting out of his head. A purple jumpsuit covered his long, lanky arms and legs. He had taken off that ridiculous cone-shaped hood, though. It was on the kitchen table. Now she could see that he had _a lot_ of hair, and it was very, very thick and messy. The color of it was one of the darkest blacks Jane had ever seen.

Even with his back facing her, Makara seemed more than a bit foreboding.

She couldn't move. It wasn't as if she was paralyzed by fear, oh no. It was that she had just realized she had made the biggest mistake of her life, thinking that she could confront this demon and live to tell of it. She was frightened, of course she was, but that was only the secondary emotion in the presence of this: 'SHIT I FUCKED UP OH GOG WHAT AM I DOING HERE NOW SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT-'

While she was kicking herself mercilessly in her mind, Gamzee finished programming the oven's temperature and turned to get his sopor pie. As he lifted the tin up, he saw Jane.

Their eyes met.

She wondered how she wasn't peeing her pants.

"Oh, hey there, my motherfuckin' sis," said the monster, a shit-eating grin splitting his face, "You came back for me?"

:o) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ (o:

_Hey guys! Hi! _

_Today, July 27th, is my birthday. I can hardly believe it! I went out for bubble tea today. Then I bought some ice cream mochi and ate it. Then I basically played Sims 3 all day while petting my cats, who stayed with me for, like, the whole six hours. All in all, it was a good day, I think. I'm going to Six Flags on Sunday. That'll be so much fun. I hope it doesn't rain or anything. _

_So, yeah, about this story... I had such a craving for a good Gamzee/Jane, so I went on the internets to find one. I found a few, and they got my blood pumping, so I decided to make one of my own. I hope you guys like it!_

_One more thing before the disclaimer. Just one last, itty-bitty thing. As some of you may know, I'm the writer of the fanfic _"Genesis". _I started that particular story because not only did I want to write a Jade's reverse harem fic, but also because I really, really wanted to write a convincing Gamzee/Jade fic. Oh my gog, you guys, Gamzee/Jade is my Homestuck OTP. Yeah, really. Yes, seriously. I'm in love with that pairing, but it's such a rarepair that it doesn't get much attention. And it's just so GOOD. It really, truly is. I'm very sad that there aren't more stories for Gamzee/Jade, because I think they would work SO MOTHERFUCKIN' WELL. _

_The point is, because I whole-heartedly ship Gamzee/Jade, I'm starting to get into Gamzee/Jane, because it's better known and shipped seriously by more people. The pictures of Gamz n' Jane are sometimes TO DIE FOR, they're so good. _

_So, to recap:_

_1) Gamzee/Jade = OTP_

_2) Gamzee/Jane = Warming up to it_

_3) Jade/Gamzee/Jane = I'm creaming my pants over here! Can someone make this OT3 a reality, pretty motherfuckin' please! I have to write that story next... ehehehehe!_

**DISCLAIMER: **_No I don't own Gamzee, Jane, Jade, Jake, Dirk, Jane's Dad, Lil' Seb, or Roxy. I just love them all to death. :o) hOnK hOnK!_

_See if you can spot all of the ships! (hint: Cotton Candy, Thinkin' with Portals, and English Muffin!)_

_So, I love all of my readers. Leave a review if you want to! :)_


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